Topic: Old Kodak Cameras

[Steven.]

For my birthday last month, my aunt got me 4 old kodak cameras. 2 of them are unusable, but I think the remaining 2, the kodak flash bantam and the no. 1 supermatic seem to be working ok. unfortunately i have never gone beyond the realms of 135 and 120 so i have no clue where to begin.

does anyone have any info on how to operate? i have a vague idea about how to shoot (i know how to on the flash bantam) but other than that im lost.

thanks in advance.

[Flippy]

The supermatic is a shutter, a pic or two might help identify what camera it is on.  The flash bantam uses 828 film, so you're kind of out of luck with that...  If you have spools for it you could roll some 35mm up for it - 828 is 35mm wide, but you'd get sprocket holes in the image.

[Steven.]

i'll have some pics up soon. i looked up an article about how to respool 35mm but im not a fan of the image on the sprockets.. i saw a thing on how to convert 120 film to be used with it but the link was old or whatever.

[f6point3]

SprayNPray:  I'm guessing your "No. 1 Supermatic" is actually the type of shutter attached to a Kodak folding camera.  You may have a little name plate on the inside of the lens bed (the little door that opens on the front) that tells you what type camera it is.  Here's an example:



And here is a close-up of that same lens/shutter, as you see it is also a No. 1 Supermatic, which is the shutter for the Vigilant Six-20:



If these photos resemble your camera at all, then what you've got is a Six-20 camera, which takes 620 type film.  620 is no longer manufactured, but 120 film is the same width and length.  The only difference is the spool, and it's easy to re-spool 120 onto 620 spools.  See this very good tutorial.

[Steven.]

wow thats the exact camera.. any idea how to fire the shutter? do you cock it by moving the silver lever by the waist level finder to the left? also i cant figure out how to get it open to load film 

[f6point3]

Cock the shutter by pushing the lever on top, next to the viewfinder (see pic), all the way across the channel.  You can fire it by pushing the button on top of the camera body, or by releasing it with the little lever on the right-hand side (as you're holding it to take a pic) of the lens.

The opening-up is very easy: there's a little lever under the carrying handle that you lift, which unlocks the door.  If it doesn't lift, it moves in the direction of the arrow -- there are different catch releases for different models.

You can find the manual for it here: http://www.butkus.org/chinon/kodak/kodak_vigilants/kodak_vigilants.pdf

Different lens but same basic operation.  Good luck and have fun!